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Aued: Debate about Walmart not as clear as it may seem

We’d barely made it out of Athens when we heard that familiar thud-thud-thud sound.

It was Thanksgiving Day, and my wife and I were driving to her parents’ house in Savannah. The tire blew a few miles north of Madison.

We changed it out for the spare, but with 200 miles left to go, we had a tough decision to make: Limp back to Athens or head into town and pray someplace that sold tires was open.

We opted for the latter. An auto-parts store sat dark and silent on the corner. But what’s that ahead? Something to be thankful for — a Walmart. With cars in the lot.

The gentleman who took care of us, a retiree who went back to work out of boredom, said he was not pleased to be there, though a relative had promised to bring him a plate later. But Walmart staying open — and forcing its workers to miss their turkey — allowed us spend the holiday with our family.

We can’t tell anyone back in Athens about this, I told my wife. We’ll be run out of town on a rail. “But we didn’t have any choice!” we’ll scream as our neighbors feed us bit-by-bit to their backyard chickens.

Here I am, though, writing a column about it. Because this whole downtown Walmart thing is a little more complicated than either side wants to admit.

Ordinarily, Masters’ Garage and Snow Tire take care of all my many automotive needs. Everything being equal, I’d rather buy my produce at the co-op than Kroger, but everything — especially price — is rarely equal.

Even if a Whole Foods did open downtown, I couldn’t afford to shop there on my meager journalist’s salary. Neither could many people who live near the proposed Walmart, even if they’re lucky enough to have jobs. East Athens, one of the poorest places in the country, is officially a “food desert,” according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture, meaning it’s pretty much impossible to find anything fresh without getting into a car, a convenience not everyone possesses.

The upside for consumers is, stuff is cheap. Walmart’s especially ruthless brand of capitalism keeps prices down. Like most retailers, it doesn’t pay very well or offer great benefits. A few Google searches will tell you all about the Chinese sweatshops, the Main Street stores crushed, the employees on food stamps and PeachCare, the hundreds of thousands of workers who’ve sued for discrimination or unpaid overtime.

Perhaps the company is turning over a new leaf, though. The world’s largest private employer is spending millions on energy efficiency, moving toward zero waste and offering more healthy, organic foods as it adapts to a changing clientele.

So what do you value more? Uniqueness or efficiency? Locally-grown or lower costs? Mediocre jobs now or maybe better jobs somewhere down the road, if the property is developed in a different manner?

We can talk about this until Michael Stipe gets a Sam’s Club card but, in the end, developer Selig Enterprises can slap a Walmart there whether we like it not. Even though many people are seething at the idea of such a corporate behemoth near our beloved downtown, we laid the groundwork years ago to put it there, or something like it. All the myriad plans and studies and zoning codes local officials and residents have written over the years point to a dense, urban, walkable, commercial and residential mixed-use development, which just so happens to be what Selig is proposing, Walmart or no.

As it turns out, maybe this is a discussion we should have had a decade ago. Who knows what discussion we’ll be having in 10 years that we should have had today.

• Blake Aued is the government reporter for the Athens Banner-Herald and can be reached at blake.aued@onlineathens.com.